Office of Business Operations

Fixed Assets | Disposal Guidelines

Disposal of Surplus Property

Departments/colleges are prohibited from conducting their own sales of surplus property and from placing "sale" advertisements or from disposing of items independently that may be deemed to have value.  

  1. Departments shall notify the Accounting Manager in Treasury of items being declared "surplus" by completing a Transit/Surplus Form and, if disposing of capital assets or equipment that have hard drives, an Equipment Inventory Deletions Report.  Both forms can be found on the Fixed Assets web page. Information to be included: the description of the property, its UNI property tag number (if applicable), condition, color or finish, approximate age, location, and other descriptive information.
  2. The Accounting Manager will notify Facilities Services of any surplus furniture. Facilities Services may reserve furniture for use in renovation projects or release it to the Accounting Manager.
  3. Surplus property released to the Accounting Manager will be matched with existing requests. If there are no existing requests, the Accounting Manager will periodically advertise items in appropriate campus publications, including university web pages and InsideUNI for purchase by, or transfer to, other university departments. If a transfer is arranged, net receipts will be deposited to the selling department's sale of equipment account.
  4. If the property has value but is not needed by another campus department, the Accounting Manager will determine the appropriate means to sell the property, in most cases this will be by selling the property at the UNI Surplus Store sales held every 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month at UNI Warehouse, or sell online at PublicSurplus.com or other approved online sites.  These sales are advertised through the Surplus Store email list.  In special cases the Accounting Manager may determine that a public auction is a more appropriate avenue to dispose of the property, which will be advertised in appropriate publications, local newspaper, university web pages, Surplus Store email list and InsideUNI.  The net proceeds of the sale will be deposited to the Sale of Equipment account for general university credit and use. In the case of auxiliary organizations, net proceeds will be deposited to their restricted accounts.

Alternate Methods of Disposal of Surplus Property

The Procurement Services Department and Accounting Manager are responsible for assisting departments in identifying disposal alternatives (i.e. Trade-ins, used components or parts, scrap, etc.), establishing relative values and recommending economically appropriate actions. The Asst. Vice President for Finance and Operations must authorize any alternate method of disposal of university property.

Disposal of Scrap Material

The Accounting Manager should be consulted on the sale of scrap material such as waste paper, non-precious metals, automobile batteries, and salvaged building materials. If necessary the Procurement Services Manager will be consulted for bids. Normally at least two competitive quotes will be obtained, based on quantity of scrap available. Net proceeds shall be credited to the department selling the scrap material.

Disposal of Library Materials

The library periodically eliminates duplicate, antiquated, or donated material inappropriate for the collection. The Accounting Manager will assist in the disposal of library materials by a sale or other appropriate disposition. Net proceeds shall be credited to the library.